by Miranda Lee
James was totally taken aback, both by Megan’s hot temper and her revelation. ‘You looked me up on the internet?’
‘How else would I have found out who and what you were? I was madly in love with you but I didn’t know you. I still don’t know you. Like I said, Jessica Mason knows you better than I do.’
‘Not really.’
‘How can you say that? You worked with her for a long time. And you were lovers. Don’t deny it.’
‘I haven’t denied it.’
‘How nice that your brutal honesty only goes so far!’
James frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing,’ she bit out, and picked up her fork.
‘No, you meant something.’
Now is your opportunity, Megan. Tell him. Tell him you know he doesn’t love you. That he’s lied to you all along.
But she just couldn’t.
Was it her lust for him which stopped her? Or the love she still felt?
Maybe both.
Her sigh carried a measure of frustration. ‘The thing is, James, a wife wants to understand her husband, not just love him like a blind fool. You should have shared more of your past life with me. I told you everything about myself. Not that there was all that much. No incredible life experiences. No newsworthy successes. Certainly no previous lovers to confess to.’
‘But you never wanted to know about my past girlfriends,’ he protested. ‘You told me so.’
Perhaps because subconsciously I was afraid to know, Megan realised with a flash of insight. Who wants to hear about super-beautiful, super-glamorous women that your husband had been with? Especially when you’re just a very ordinary girl with no special beauty or talents to speak of.
But she wasn’t afraid any more, came another unexpected realisation. If nothing else, this past week had shown her that she had the courage to speak up. About some things, anyway.
‘I’m not talking just about your love life, James,’ Megan said, ‘but your life! What were you like as a child? What were your hopes and your fears? Your dreams and your ambitions?’
James felt some exasperation at this third degree from Megan. He’d never been partial to telling his life story. Reminiscing over his wretched upbringing was not his idea of fun. But he could see her point. He hadn’t been very forthcoming with her, a hangover perhaps of having told Jackie everything, then finding out he’d revealed his very soul to a creature without a soul herself.
He could see, however, how much it meant to Megan to know some more about him.
So he told her, over their meal, about his family life, and about his father. He held nothing back. He told the truth, warts and all. It wasn’t till he came to the part about his brother’s death that he felt his throat tighten. He managed to tell Megan about his brother’s will, but then he simply had to stop.
Scooping in a deep, gathering breath, he picked up his wine glass, downed it all in one gulp, then exhaled slowly.
This is why I don’t like talking about the past, James accepted ruefully. Because I can’t stand the painful memories. Can’t stand the pain.
Megan stared at her husband. She’d listened, horrified, to the tale of his family’s abuse at the hands of a brutal father. His stories of being beaten and bullied made her own complaints about her materialistic and slightly domineering mother seem small, and insignificant. Megan had never doubted that her mother loved her. Neither did her father really mind that his wife nagged him. Henry Donnelly was a soft-hearted but rather silly man who needed a practical and forceful woman to keep his life in order. Forceful, but never cruel.
It came to Megan that James’s inability to love might have come from the lack of love in his childhood. How could you ever show what you were never shown? Maybe if his brother had lived things might have been different. Jonathon must have loved his little brother a lot to leave him everything in his will.
‘How old was Jonathon when he died?’ she asked, unable to remember from the newspaper article.
‘Twenty-three. The coroner declared it an accident,’ James said with a wry twist to his lips. ‘A combination of speed and alcohol. But I’ve always thought it odd that Jonathon only made his will the day before he died, leaving everything to me. Prior to that he didn’t have a will at all. Why that day, I ask myself?’
‘You think he killed himself?’
James shrugged. ‘I don’t know. No one knows, except perhaps my father. I do know this: Jonathon wasn’t happy. He was a very smart guy. Had an IQ of 150. He wanted to be a doctor. But Dad refused to pay for him to go to medical school. So he went into the family business and became dad’s lackey. A well-paid lackey, obviously, by the size of his estate, but still a lackey.’
‘He could have left and been his own man, James, the way you did.’
‘It wasn’t as easy as that. Jonathon was the first-born, the more responsible son. He didn’t stay at home because he was afraid to leave. He stayed to protect our mother.’
‘Oh, James. That’s simply tragic.’
The sympathy in her eyes and voice touched him. But he didn’t really want it. Neither did he want to talk any more about the subject of his father. Or his past.
‘Could we leave any more sharing of my life story to some other time?’ he said abruptly. ‘We’ll have that infernal waiter coming over soon and asking me if there’s anything wrong with the food, just so he can stare down your cleavage. We won’t be coming here again, that’s for sure, not with you dressed like that.’
‘I’m no more provocatively dressed than your Jessie was,’ Megan defended herself, whilst feeling secretly pleased with James’s jealousy.
‘Jessie’s not my wife. I don’t care if she likes being ogled by strangers.’
Megan gasped. ‘I do not like being ogled by strangers. How dare you say that?’
James smiled. He dared because he wanted to get back to the very subject he’d vowed to avoid earlier. Sex was a wonderful distraction for emotional distress. Or so he’d always found, right from his youngest days.
‘You look very beautiful when you’re angry,’ he said. ‘Now, eat up your risotto.’
Megan glared at him, hating the way he could accuse her of something distasteful, then immediately attempt to disarm her with such a clichéd and manipulative compliment. As sorry as she’d felt for him a minute ago, she now felt nothing but anger.
‘I’m not hungry any more,’ she said mutinously.
‘Neither am I,’ he replied, then stared hard, first at her face, then at her breasts, then back at her mouth. ‘At least…not for food,’ he added, a wild glitter in his dark eyes.
Megan sucked in sharply. This was what could disarm her. Having him look at her like that.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he suggested thickly. ‘Right now.’
Megan swallowed. ‘But…but what about the rest of our food? And the wine?’
‘There’s food back at the villa. And loads of wine.’
She just stared at him. Did she dare do this? Just get up and leave? It seemed outrageous. But ooh, she wanted to.
‘Don’t think,’ he commanded gruffly as he stood up then reached for her hand. ‘Just leave everything and come with me.’
For a split second Megan still hesitated, her survival instinct warning her that if she put her hand in his, if she obeyed him without question, then she would be lost. He would run rampant with her body, and her life. There would be no possibility of leaving him. She would become his as she’d never been before.
Was it the rampant hunger in his eyes which swayed her? Or what he’d confided to her earlier? Who could say what it was that sealed her fate?
Megan stood up somewhat shakily, then stretched out her hand.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JAMES could not believe the buzz he got when she placed her hand in his. Yes, he thought triumphantly. Yes!
His fingers closed tightly around hers, his heart thudding loudly in his chest as he almost dragged her across the tiled floo
r of the restaurant, past the bulging eyes of their waiter, out of the door, then over to the car park.
They were in the buggy and on their way in no time flat. The beach buggy, however, was not a speedy vehicle. James had to slow even further at the security gate, waving at the guard before accelerating along the winding track that would lead them back to the villa and straight to bed.
Thinking about making love catapulted James back to the dangerous state he’d been in earlier when that lecherous bastard had been ogling Megan’s breasts. No, that was an understatement. He was worse now. Much worse. Hell on earth, he’d never had an erection like it. The road suddenly seemed endless. He could not wait. He simply could not wait.
Megan gasped when James muttered a sexually based expletive, then pulled the already lurching buggy over to the side of the road, his applying of the brakes so fierce that she almost fell out. She had no time to ask him what was wrong before he scooped her up off the leather seat and carried her into the darkened forest.
‘I can’t wait’ were the only words he spoke to her.
They were enough. Megan knew what he was going to do. Knew she was going to let him.
The palm tree he leant her up against had a wide trunk, and was leaning slightly backwards. He didn’t undress either himself or her. He unzipped his trousers then lifted her skirt, pushing aside the thin strip of red satin which was the only barrier between his flesh and hers.
Megan cried out when he drove up into her, a sharp keening sound rather like that of a bird. After that she was quiet, for his mouth had swooped to silence her, muffling the moans which tried to escape from her throat. Her head spun with the wild savagery of his mating, Megan thrilling to the intensity of his passion for her. He came much too quickly for her, but she still loved it. She especially loved the way he held her to him afterwards, as if he was a drowning man, and she his lifeline.
‘Sorry,’ he muttered into her hair. ‘Sorry.’
His apology surprised her.
‘No need to apologise,’ she whispered in the darkness. ‘I didn’t mind.’
‘There’s every need,’ he growled. ‘I acted like some wild animal.’
‘But I really didn’t mind,’ she insisted.
His head lifted and she could feel him staring down at her in the darkness.
‘You’re telling me the truth? You’re not just saying that?’
For an answer she reached up to cup his face with tender hands. ‘I would never lie to you,’ she murmured.
He groaned, then kissed her again, kissed her till she felt his flesh twitch inside her own.
‘Next time will be for you, my darling,’ he said against her lips, then hoisted her up onto his hips.
Amazingly he carried her back to the buggy like that, after which, even more amazingly, he drove back to the villa with her sitting in his lap, facing him, their bodies still fused. The road was not all that smooth, and by the time James parked the buggy under its carport Megan’s focus was on one thing and one thing only: release from the screaming sexual tension which was gripping her body. When he started walking from the buggy to the villa, she buried her face into the base of his throat and prayed for a speedy deliverance. When he didn’t carry her straight inside, her head shot up, just in time to see where they were and what he was about to do.
‘No, don’t!’ she cried out as he walked slowly down the steps into the pool. ‘You’ll ruin our clothes!’
‘I doubt it. Expensive clothes don’t ruin that easily.’
The water gradually encircled them both, deliciously warm and sensuous. But their clothes soon became a problem, James’s shirt glued to his chest, whilst Megan’s skirt floated up onto the surface.
‘I think we’d better get naked,’ James said.
‘But…’ She didn’t want to separate from him.
‘Yes, I know,’ he said, ‘but it’s just a short interruption. We have all night, Megan. In fact, we have ten whole days.’
Taking clothes off in a pool was not easy, she discovered. Finally they were both naked, only her earrings remaining, along with his gold Rolex. She swam back towards him from the side of the pool, the water moving over her naked flesh like a silken glove, caressing and arousing.
‘I think we should get out now.’
‘What? But why?’
‘Making love in water is a common fantasy. But it can be a bit of an anticlimax. I only came in here to cool us both down. You stay whilst I go and get you something cosy to put on.’ He levered himself out of the pool in a flash and dashed across the decking, disappearing inside within seconds.
Megan could not help feeling disappointed, no matter what James said. She didn’t think making love in the water would have been an anticlimax at all! Of course, he’d already had his climax, whereas she felt totally frustrated.
James came back, carrying one of the thick white towelling robes she’d seen hanging up on the back of the bathroom door. He himself had nothing on but a turquoise towel slung low around his hips.
‘Come on, little mermaid. Out of there.’
Megan tried not to feel self-conscious as she made her way up the graduated steps of the pool; tried to be bold and not care that he was staring at her with annoyingly cool eyes.
Unfortunately she still hadn’t mastered her woman-of-the-world act, diving into the robe straight away and wrapping the rather thick sash tightly around her waist.
‘No, I don’t think so, Megan,’ James said, and pulled the sash undone so that the robe fell open again. ‘I want to look at you whilst I dry your hair.’ And so saying, he whipped the towel from his hips.
He took his time drying her hair, and yes, he looked at her. Often. At one stage he pushed the robe further back so that her erect nipples were exposed. Once, he stroked the towel down over them, causing her to sway dangerously from side to side.
His eyes narrowed immediately and he threw the towel away.
‘Time, I think, for bed.’
‘Bed?’ she repeated, rather surprised at this. She’d been imagining that he would make love to her somewhere else. Out here perhaps, on one of the banana loungers, or in the huge living room, where there were any number of sofas. And rugs. Thick, exotic-looking rugs just made for having sex on.
‘Yes, bed,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t look so surprised. There is method in my madness.’
She didn’t doubt it. Clearly the uncontrollable beast she’d encountered earlier on, and whom she’d rather liked, was gone, replaced by the cool man-of-the-world she knew oh, so well, and who would never do a thing without thinking it through.
James did not make a habit of being impulsive. He was as pragmatic as Jessie had said he was. The fact Megan had managed to make him lose control, even once, brought a measure of satisfaction.
‘Let’s go,’ he said and, firmly taking her elbow, steered her back into the villa, and into the bedroom.
The bed was still unmade from their encounters earlier in the day, the pillows all over the place. James straightened the satin sheets, then arranged the six pillows in two rows, three up against the bed head, another three in front of them.
‘Now, let’s get this off you,’ he said, and peeled the robe back from her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. ‘Lie down in the middle of the bed, with your head resting on the first lot of pillows.’
Megan didn’t question her willingness to obey him. She did what he said. Because she wanted to.
When he bent down to retrieve something from the floor, her head lifted off the pillows, her breath catching as she watched him pull the sash through the side-loops of the robe. Once again, she knew what he was going to do before he did it.
‘Lift your arms up above your head towards the bed head. No, not that far. Rest your hands together on the pillows. You can bend your elbows a little.’
Her eyes were wide on his as he wound the towelling belt round one wrist and then the other.
‘Not too tight?’ he asked her.
‘No,’ she r
eplied breathlessly.
‘I want you to be comfortable,’ he said quietly as he worked.
At last he climbed off the bed and just stared down at her.
She couldn’t see exactly what he’d done. Only feel. She couldn’t move her wrists apart but there was a little forwards and backwards movement. Clearly he’d tied her wrists together with the belt first, then attached it to the bed head in some way.
‘How delicious you look,’ he said, his voice still cool but his body anything but.
She didn’t feel delicious so much as unbearably excited and recklessly abandoned. She wanted him to keep looking at her. But she wanted him to touch her more.
‘So…do you like it, my darling?’ he asked her.
Like it? Impossible to describe her feelings with inadequate words such as like. Her world had been tipped off its axis with his tying her up, her breathing so fast she thought her heart might jump out of her chest.
She simply could not speak.
‘Do you want me to untie you? I will if you want me to.’
Her eyes met his as her head went slowly from side to side on the pillow.
He smiled. ‘I had a feeling you’d like it.’
He’d just lain down next to her on the bed, his right hand hovering over her uptilted breasts, when the phone beside the bed rang.
Megan turned horrified eyes its way.
‘Don’t answer it,’ she managed to croak out.
‘It won’t take long.’
‘Yes?’ he said rather sharply down the line. ‘What? No, no, there wasn’t anything wrong with the food. Or the wine. My wife came over a little faint, so I brought her home straight away.’ This, with a wicked wink her way. ‘Thank you for ringing. Yes, I’m sure she’ll be fine. She just needs a little lie-down and some tender loving care. Bye.’
He hung up, then turned to her with the slowest, sexiest smile she’d ever seen. ‘And now,’ he said, and moved to stretch out lazily beside her once more, ‘let’s get down to that tender loving care…’